Tobirama too frowned at that, as did nearly all the other people in the enigmatic space.
Eventually Tobirama could only come up with a flimsy excuse. "Perhaps the people who are in the other room right now have watched you previously and watched you invent the jutsu?"
No one believed the explanation, but it would have to do for now.
***
Haruto awoke the next day with a lazy gaze at the clock on his bed side stand.
'Did I really sleep for ten hours…? It felt more like two…'
Haruto pulled off his comforter lazily and took a short shower with hot water, making him feel comfy in the winter morning as he dressed himself and set off towards the Research and Development Department.
As soon as Haruto arrived at the R&D department he quietly moved towards the receptionist, "Ahem…"
"Yes, oh! It's you again… Hokage-sama said he would be attending your demonstration at twelve in the afternoon."
"Hmmm… is that so…"
"Yes… you can wait here if you want to, since the demonstration will happen here itself."
"I see. Thank you for letting me know about it."
Haruto then quietly made his way towards his desk, only halfway there he happened upon a chance encounter.
"You there…" A slimy looking man pushed up his spectacles causing them to flash with light as he stopped Haruto by stepping in front of him.
"Huh? Who? Me?" Haruto asked slightly surprised, but he did well to hide the surprise using Occlumency. Either way, to Haruto this was a strange event, he had never seen or met any other person in the research and development department in all his time working here.
He had been indicted into the department by Hiruko and had remained alone in his desk ever since. He had genuinely wanted to reach out to his fellow colleagues once the pressure of Hiruko was gone, but he didn't get the opportunity to because most of them had been fired as soon as Danzo took office.
Or perhaps they had been transferred to Danzo's Hashirama cell research in the ROOT building, Haruto didn't know. Either way there were too few people here in the research and development department for Haruto to interact with them without seeming odd in some way.
So when one of the people inside the department stopped him in his tracks, Haruto was slightly bewildered to say the least.
"Yes, you, who else is here for me to talk to other than you!?" the man said with obvious distaste.
'He clearly doesn't like me… so why is he forcing himself to talk to me?'
"So… what do you want from me?" Haruto asked hesitantly.
"What else can you give me? Other than show me your stupid research project."
Haruto frowned at the man's obviously terrible language. "What's your problem?" Haruto asked the man with a cold face.
The man looked like he wanted to spit on Haruto's face but was controlling himself as he spoke, "I want to see what research you're conducting that allowed you to stay while my friends had to leave."
Haruto looked around the R&D department floor and nearly everyone was looking up from their stations, glaring at Haruto while awaiting the outcome of their conversation.
'It seems I don't really have any credibility around these parts…' Haruto immediately figured out the issue.
Clearly, the man thought of him and his research as lesser, which was why he wanted to show up Haruto or probably ask Danzo for a reconsideration to reinstate his friends and fire Haruto if possible.
"Fine… I'll show it to you." Haruto nodded calmly before sidestepping the researcher and moving towards his desk.
The researcher followed and soon along with him other researchers had left their stations and come running to witness Haruto's research, clearly to demean him once he revealed it by telling him just how terrible it truly was.
Haruto opened the software in front of everyone and displayed the contents to them all.
"What's this? A blank screen? What use is that? To stare at your ugly face that even your mother would be ashamed to claim?" One of the researchers asked.
Haruto's brow twitched but he kept calm and spoke gently, "What if my research shuts you up?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" The original researcher who'd provoked Haruto asked him in return with a confused frown on his face.
"Some researcher you are if you didn't even understand what I just said." Haruto said in a bland tone before explaining further, "What I mean is, if my research shuts you up for good, it is only appropriate that I receive something in return, isn't that correct?"
"Huh? How's that fair!?" The researcher argued.
"How's it not fair? I'm demonstrating something to you that even Hokage-sama has never seen before… and what if you steal my research and present it as your own to Hokage-sama to earn credit instead of me?"
The researcher immediately put up an unwilling expression, he'd just come out here to show off, not to get caught up in debt. But Haruto knew just how to press everyone's buttons.
"You're researchers and you can't even evaluate the worth of someone's research? I can tell the value of your research just by this… it must be quite cheap… that's probably why Hokage-sama let you guys stay while firing everyone else."
All the researchers present suddenly saw red and one of them shouted out loud, "I'll give you ten thousand ryo if your research shuts me up!!!"
Haruto smiled in his mind.
'They got caught!'
There were about twelve people gathered around his desk so that was about a hundred and twenty thousand ryo he'd get for free.
So Haruto spoke quickly, "Alright… let's see my research then."
He spoke quickly because he didn't want anyone to ask what he would pay if he didn't surprise them. After all, he didn't have that much money and they might cool down and call off the bet if they realised that they were the only ones paying.
Haruto turned around and pulled up a file into his software.
"Recognise this everyone?"
Everyone peered over each other's shoulders to see what Haruto was showing them, and once they got a good look they nodded, but now that there was money on the line, there were no more snide remarks.
"This is a normal scanned receipt." Haruto said before pressing the convert button on top of the page, "My software does this…"
The screen flashed once before a loading circle animated icon showed up. There was pin drop silence on the floor for a few seconds until a few people started to fidget due to the pressure.
Haruto too took a deep breath with his fingers crossed.
'I hope this is not a moment of- it works on my computer but not yours…'
Just as the first of the researchers were about to complain, the screen changed!
It flashed once more and now there were two pages side by side, one was the old scanned document and the new one was a clean typed document instead.
Everyone looked at the two documents that had appeared and their eyes slowly widened.
"This!!!"
"How!!!??? How is this even possible!!!"
"Oh!! No!!! My ten thousand ryo!!!!!"
***
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